Everyone is getting older: Will dementia attack not only elderly? What do the researchers find?

What is Dementia? 

People who are not able to think, recognize, and memorize using the cognitive system can be called dementia. Dementia is not only about forgetting something but also it is about someone who losses their ability of the cognitive system function such as the abilities to control the emotion. Dementia has so many sub-types it is about 200 sub-types. Many common of dementia types are Alzheimer, Vascular dementia, Frontotemporal dementia. Alzheimer is a highly common type of dementia, people who are unable to communicate in order to respond to somebody whereas they usually are easy to getting lost in a common place and they are not able to make an appropriate decision, misplacing things, changing in mood including personality and behavior.

Who will suffer?

Everyone can suffer dementia, highly for the elderlies. According to WHO commonly it started at 65 years old. The early symptoms are forgetting something, losing and misplacing, getting lost in a walk including confusing in a place, difficulties in making any decisions, having trouble in conversation, having issues such as anxiety, and conducting inappropriate behavior. The number of dementia has risen, it has been predicted the number will increase up to 152 million cases in 2050 (Livingston, Huntley, Sommerlad, Ames, & and friends, 2020).

Statistical data of Alzheimer and Dementia in Indonesia

In Indonesia, dementia is 106th position in the world in 2020. It is a huge number. It must be an attention for us about this case. Meanwhile, it is 12th for the cause of death in Indonesia it attacks cervical and liver cancer as a heavy disease. It looks like that dementia is a dangerous disease contributing the death for any risks such as smoking, bad diet, obesity, consuming alcohol, poor blood pressure, sugar, and cholesterol all these can impact to dementia.

See this link below:

https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/indonesia-alzheimers-dementia 

What cause?

Dementia usually can be referred as the neurocognitive disorder, the general term affect to disorder of mental function.

There are many causes of dementia:

1. Bad blood flow such as stroke.

2. Lewy body, the brain produces deposit abnormal protein (Beta amyloid and Neurofibrillary tangles)

3. Brain injury

4. HIV/AIDS

5. Excess alcohol consumption

5. Bad level of blood and sugar pressure, sodium, and calcium

6. Lack of B12 Vitamin

7. Diabetes

According to (Amidei & and friends, 2021) a research entitled Association between Age at Diabetes Onset and Subsequent Risk of Dementia claimed that  younger age suffering diabetes highly contribute to the dementia. It can be concluded that diabetes case associates the dementia is not only for elderly but also younger age.

8.Hearing loss

Cited a research by (Ray, Dening, & Crosbie, 2019) entitled Dementia and hearing loss; a narrative review. This research claimed that hearing loss can cause dementia since hearing loss stimulate a change in the structure and function of the brain by stimulating brain work with high intention.

Griffiths Timothy. D and friends (How Can Hearing Loss Cause Dementia?)

According to (Griffith, Lad, & and friends, 2020) entitled How can do hearing loss cause dementia? The purpose of the study is to examine the relationship between hearing loss and dementia.  This study found out that hearing loss can impact dementia. When people have difficult using their cognitive-auditory system they are not able to respond appropriately such as they have trouble with auditory processes like word or speech producing it is typically the symptom of dementia. Hearing loss stimulates dementia medically and can be seen when the cochlea has trouble it can impact the cortex that caused dementia.

How to prevent?

Dementia can be prevented by a healthy life style. Even though it is not up to 100% but it can be helpful to delay the dementia in elderly. The things to prevent dementia are; do not smoke and use drugs, excess alcohol consumption, keeping normal blood pressure, diabetes, cholesterol, exercising regularly, and keep in social activity.

How much percentage of the effective to prevent dementia?

A research entitled "Dementia Prevention, intervention, and Care: 2020 Report of the Lancet Commission" by (Livingston, Huntley, Sommerlad, Ames, & and friends, 2020). The purpose of the research is to analyze the three modifiable risks factor of dementia with a narrative approach; extreme alcohol consumption, head injuries, and air pollution as the modifying in delaying dementia up to 40%, there are many prevention things for dementia; cultivate systole in 130 mm Hg, facilitate the hearing aids, diminish the air pollution, avoid head injury, restrict alcohol consumption, educate enough the children through the appropriate policy.  It means that dementia has many various risks contributing that can be reduced to delay the case. People should recognize the cause and the symptom earlier to reach 40% of delaying dementia.

According to a graphic chart of the research, it shows the three risks with a huge percentage potentially contributing to dementia risk; lack of education in the early stage, hearing loss, smoking, and air pollution shaping the percentage up to 40% for dementia and the rest is 60% for unknown risk. 

Based on (Moyle & Wendy, 2019) entitled The Promise of Technology in the Future of dementia care. Technology can facilitate dementia. Technology such as robot-assistant can help dementiers in their life. The robot assistant can help them to remind them about events or any appointments or maybe a task that they should do. Care-O-bot is also a technology tool with the function of evaluating the patients' mood. But the use of technology must be mastered by carers as the facilitating assistant tool for the dementiers.

Bibliography

Amidei, C. B., & and friends. (2021). Association between Age at Diabetes Onset and Subsequent Risk of Dementia. JAMA - Journal of the American Medical Association, 1640-1649.

Griffith, T., Lad, M., & and friends. (2020). How Can Hearing Loss Cause Dementia? Neuron, 401-412.

Livingston, G., Huntley, J., Sommerlad, A., Ames, D., & and friends. (2020). Dementia prevention, intervention, and care: 2020 report of the Lancet Commission. Elsevier.

Ray, M., Dening, T., & Crosbie, B. (2019). Dementia and hearing loss: a narrative review. Elsevier, 64-69.

Sources:

https://www.dementiauk.org/about-dementia/types-of-dementia/#tips

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0896627320306103

https://stanfordhealthcare.org/medical-conditions/brain-and-nerves/dementia/prevention.html

• https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/001401.htm
• https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/000739.htm
• https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/dementia/causes/
• https://alzi.or.id/demensia-vs-alzheimer/

https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/indonesia-alzheimers-dementia

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/dementia

https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/what-is-dementia